Monthly Archives: August 2017

The New Statesman published a story yesterday about ICMP’s work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article notes that by pushing for legislation to account for the missing, ICMP has helped to identify around 23,000 of the more than 30,000 people who went missing during the 1992-95 conflict. The article describes ICMP’s effort to maintain momentum so that the 8,000 who are still missing can be accounted for. http://bit.ly/2ukL3Rl

More than 1,000 victims from World Trade Center still to be identified

The New York Times reported yesterday that another 9/11 victim has been identified, the first in more than two years. Recent improvements in how DNA is extracted and tested helped confirm the man’s identity, the paper said. Technology adopted earlier this year in the New York medical examiner’s DNA laboratory helped to identify the man after previous tests had fallen short. The…

254 cases of enforced disappearance in Egypt since the beginning of 2017

Middle East Monitor reported on Monday that the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, an NGO based in Cairo, has reported 254 people as forcibly disappeared in the past six months. Of these, 104 people were between the ages of 18 and 35, and all were male. The Egyptian authorities deny claims of enforced disappearance in the country. http://bit.ly/2wyGi34

546 cases of arbitrary arrest recorded in July 2017

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported on Saturday that at least 546 cases of arbitrary arrest have been recorded for July 2017. Of these, 311 are men, 22 children and 61 women. The SNHR said it has lists of more than 117,000 people it believes to be detained by Syrian regime forces. The report also records 103 cases of abduction. http://bit.ly/2vwKJ1D

On Thursday, Balkan Insight carried a story about the third anniversary of the massacres of Ezidis on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. It says survivors want to emulate the bereaved women of Srebrenica and have the massacres recognized as genocide and the killers put on trial. On 11 July, an Ezidi delegation attended the 22nd anniversary commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide. The group now plans to encourage and empower survivors to become active community workers and to encourage local communities to document all the crimes against humanity that have been committed. Finding mass graves is a priority and survivors would like the international community to get involved in searching for gravesites and building legal cases, as it did in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The group will also try to strengthen social cohesion and rebuild trust between various ethnic groups. http://bit.ly/2htiawb

Kenya: Calls for judicial commission to inquire into enforced disappearances

The Star from Kenya reported today that former Law Society of Kenya CEO Apollo Mboya wants a court to compel the state to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Mboya has called upon human rights organizations documenting more than 300 cases of individuals who have gone missing while in the hands of security agencies since February 2008. Mboya said the commission should be constituted with a view to bringing to account those responsible for the crimes. He also wants the state to help constitute a commission of independent investigators capable of determining whether the disappearances or deaths occurred as a result of illegal use of force. http://bit.ly/2vvuL8k

HRW calls on Turkey to investigate Ankara disappearances

HRW today published a letter to Turkish Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül calling on the authorities urgently to investigate the…

The Asia Times reported on 1 August on the case of Wuthipong Kochathamakun, a prominent Thai activist opposed to military rule, who was reportedly abducted in the Lao capital of Vientiane over the weekend after three years in self-imposed exile. Wuthipong’s wife told reporters that the men who abducted her husband spoke to each other in Thai. Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan and army chief General Chalermchai Sitthisart denied any knowledge of the abduction. Wuthipong fled Thailand after the May 2014 coup that overthrew the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister, and installed a military junta that continues to rule the country with an iron fist. http://bit.ly/2vrSdmN

The Moscow Times reported on Monday that independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta has published photocopies of documents they say corroborate their earlier investigation into extrajudicial killings in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya. The copies of dated photographs feature 67 unaccounted for individuals detained by Chechen security forces between December 2016 and January 2017 as part of a sweeping anti-terror raid. The raids lasted at least six weeks and as many as 200 people are believed to have been detained. The number of detainees executed is unclear, but ranges between 27 and upwards of 56, Novaya Gazeta previously reported. http://bit.ly/2hiZtet

Human Rights Watch urges Laos authorities to investigate abduction

The Lao authorities should urgently investigate the abduction of an exiled Thai activist Wuthipong Kachathamakul, also known as Ko Tee, Human Rights Watch said today. According to multiple witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, on 29 July…

About ICMP

ICMP is a treaty-based international organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. It is the only international organization tasked exclusively to work on the issue of missing persons.